About Dr. Bonnan

Dr. Matthew Bonnan, Ph.D.

Since the tender age of 5, I have been fascinated by dinosaurs. It was never so much the treasure-hunter aspect of paleontology that attracted me to this science, but rather the thrill of reconstructing long-dead animals and breathing life into old bones. In other words, I am a zoologist and anatomist at heart who happens to be fascinated by dinosaurs. I see dinosaurs as living animals, and I want to reconstruct how these animals moved and behaved when their bones were still pulsing with blood.

To get a bit technical, my research combines traditional descriptive and anatomical study with computer-aided morphometric analysis and modeling of vertebrate skeletons. The focus of my research is limb functional morphology in dinosaurs, as well as the broader locomotor and evolutionary implications of size. I am particularly interested in the evolution and locomotor adaptations of the giant, terrestrial sauropod dinosaurs. These long-necked herbivores attained sizes no other dinosaurian or mammalian group has ever approached on land; part of sauropod success as giants may be tied to limb morphology and specializations.

On a bit of a philosophical note, as I tell my children and students, nothing worth doing in life is easy. That is certainly true for the field of paleontology. I have been fortunate in having parents who supported my dreams even though they were not scientists or academics, and that helped tremendously. I was also fortunate to marry another academic who understands the quirkiness and obsession of this type of career. In fact, paleontology and academics in general tend to be less of an occupation than a vocation. You pursue this type of career because you love it.

There is a saying that working at making your dreams reality takes the work out of the courage, and I certainly follow that philosophy. As with many of us who go into basic scientific research, there were many personal and professional challenges to overcome, and I’m sure the future holds more of the same. However, I wouldn’t have it any other way: I feel lucky and grateful to be someone who has their dream job. My role in the discovery of two new dinosaurs has been one of the greatest, recent rewards of this career, and my inner 5-year-old very much approves.

4 thoughts on “About Dr. Bonnan”

Hello Matt,
I was looking for you at your old site and to my surprise found out you are moving east. A lot has changed since the last time I emailed you. I hope this will give you an opportunity to come up to New York for a visit. Let me know what your new email address will be. I know you were working on a book. How is that coming along? Hope to hear from you soon.

I have a question about Haversian canals, as pertains to dinosaurs. When alligators are raised in commercial farms with unlimited food supplies and elevated temperatures, they grow and mature nearly as fast as mammals. Do they exhibit increased Haversian canal formation in their bones under these circumstances?

Yes, crocs raised on commercial farms with ideal temperatures and abundant food, as well as some wild alligators and crocs, do develop increased Haversian canal formation (Chinsamy-Turan 2005). However, more recent reviews of bone histology as it applies to dinosaurs have shown pretty compelling evidence that the signals we see in dinosaurs are much more like mammals and birds, and that Amprino’s law (i.e., bone growth rate = bone tissue deposition) is not as clear cut as we used to think.